Unigene
Aim: To understand the concept of UniGene and its usage on the internet.
Principle:
Unigene is also a database in NCBI. Each UniGene cluster gives a sequence of a unique gene; means, the sequences present in UniGene are those of transcriptome or you can say Unigene contains only the expressed genes. The intron part of DNA is totally excluded from Unigene. All RNA molecules produced by a cell are there in UniGene.
UniGene also gives information about related proteins of a particular gene. It identifies transcripts from the same locus. It also analyses expression of a protein on the basis of age of cell, health of the individual, tissue type etc.
It is important to note that data in UniGene is updated every month.
Procedure:
1. Go to Entrez.
2. From here, click on UniGene. The UniGene page will open directly. The Unigene page can be opened directly using the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/unigene/ .
Front page of UniGene will open
3. Click on FAQ in the left hand side. From here, the entire concept of Unigene can be understood.
Result: Unigene was thoroughly understood on the web.
Precautions: Same as Practical 1.